The college said it would give a realistic experience of working life. A further education college is including remote working in its T-Level curriculum from September. Lincoln College’s Assistant Principal for Heart, Health and Care, Steve Horsfield, said 50 per cent of the placements on certain courses, such as digital, could be done remotely, and it would give a realistic experience of working life.
T-Levels are technical qualifications, equivalent to A-Levels, that work closely with industries. Part of the course includes a mandatory work placement. Mr Horsfield told the BBC that the decision to offer work placements that included home working was to “replicate what’s going on in the industry itself”, made after working closely with employers. He said: "It's why we're so focused on holding employer boards, we speak to industry partners across all of our T-levels regularly and they really support us with how we develop and work with our learners.
"It's not a decision we've taken lightly, it's taken with lots of research and through the industries themselves, to make it industry-specific with them.". The decision comes as working from home has grown more prevalent since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 led to a number of employees being unable to go to the office. In November, the Office for National Statistics revealed that 26 per cent of people had said they’d been hybrid-working the previous seven days - meaning they spent some days in the workplace and other days at home - while 14 per cent worked from home fully. Meanwhile, 41 per cent had commuted to their workplace every day.
